Mohamed Amashah was released on Sunday “after 486 days of arbitrary detention,” according to the Freedom Initiative, the human rights organization that advocated on his behalf. He returned to the United States on Monday and “returned to his home in Jersey City, New Jersey to be with his loved ones,” the organization said in a statement.
“The relief on the face of the whole family” when Amashah arrived at the airport “is priceless,” Mohamed Soltan, president of the Freedom Initiative and former Egyptian political prisoner, told CNN.
Amashah was arrested in Cairo last spring after protesting in Tahrir Square and displaying a sign saying “Freedom for all prisoners.” He was accused of misusing social media and helping a terrorist group. Amashah started a hunger strike in March 2020 to protest his imprisonment. It is unclear whether he was still on a hunger strike at the time of his release.
The Freedom Initiative said that “the liberation of Amashah is welcome progress and a step in the right direction that we hope will be based on the release of other political prisoners in Egypt, including American citizens.”
“We at Freedom Initiative, your family and friends are delighted with your release and return home and we would like to extend our deepest thanks to members of Congress, civil society organizations, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Vice President’s office for defending the Mohamed Amashah case, “they said in their statement Monday.
A State Department spokesman told CNN that “they welcome the release of the American citizen Mohamed Amashah from Egyptian custody and thank Egypt for their cooperation in his repatriation.”
CNN has reached out to the Egyptian government to comment on Amashah’s release.
“The conditions of detention are appalling and hundreds of prisoners, including political detainees, have been detained for apparently insufficient medical care, including former President Mohamed Morsy,” the organization said.
Other US citizens and permanent residents, including Khaled Hassan, Ola Al-Qaradawi, and Hosam Khalaf, remain incarcerated in Egypt; their situation was made even more vulnerable by the coronavirus outbreak. In a late April call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “emphasized that detained US citizens would be kept safe and provided with consular access during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to an American read.
The group’s letter especially drew attention to the detention of family members of Soltan, the Freedom Initiative president and former political prisoner, who filed a complaint of torture in the United States District Court against former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem. Abdel Aziz El Beblawi.
“On June 15, two weeks after Mohamed Soltan filed a lawsuit in United States federal court against his torturer, former Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawy, armed members of the Egyptian security forces raided the houses of the relatives of Mohamed and arrested five of his cousins. The family was told they would be held unless Mohamed ‘dropped the case,’ “Soltan’s attorney Eric Lewis said in a statement on June 24.” That same night, Unidentified police officers interrogated Mohamed’s father Salah Soltan in prison, after which he disappeared. “
“The Egyptian government must immediately cease this blatant attempt to interfere with the judicial process in the United States,” said Lewis.
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